History Main / HypnoPendulum

Often, a pocket watch (or another object of that sort) is swung back and forth in front of a victim repeatedly to hypnotize them. This is almost always accompanied by the hypnotist saying "You are getting very sleepy..." or some variation.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[TemptingFate "Let's see..."]]]]

* In a WesternAnimation/SylvesterTheCatAndTweetyBird cartoon, Sylvester goes to a psychiatrist to try and cure his problem chasing Tweety. Similar to the Donald Duck cartoon mentioned above, the psychiatrist first tries swinging a watch in front of his face, [[SubertedTrope but it doesn't work]], so he instead hits Sylvester on the head with a hammer.

* The exact same thing happens in a WesternAnimation/SylvesterTheCatAndTweetyBird cartoon, where Sylvester goes to a psychiatrist to try and cure his problem chasing Tweety.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' book "The Great Spongebobini", Spongebob tries to hypnotize Patrick into not being sick using a combination of this and HypnoticEyes. It doesn't work.

* In ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'', Madam Foster's bowling rival is able to hypnotize Bloo by swinging the ball from a paddle-ball in front of his face to coax him into bowling for her team.

* ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'': One of Doraemon's gadgets, as shown in "Doraemon's Time Capsule", is a wand that acts as a hypnotic pendulum that can hypnotize even artificial intelligence such as robots.

** In "Fear of a Krabby Patty", Plankton uses this as his final psychiatric exercise for [=SpongeBob=] so he can hypnotize him to tell him the formula, but it doesn't work and ends up curing him of his fear of krabby patties.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': One of the first tricks Paula uses on targets she needs to have do her bidding but doesn't have time to fully mentally break and condition is to strap them in and have a trinket spun or waved in front of their eyes to see if they're susceptible to hypnotism.

** In "Fear of a Krabby Patty", Plankton uses this as his final psychiatric exercise for [=SpongeBob=] so he can hypnotize him to tell him the formula, but it doesn't work and ends up curing him of his fear.

* The Psychic-type Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Hypno wields a pendulum, swinging it back and forth to perform its psychic attacks.

!!Examples

[[folder: Advertising]]

[[folder: Anime And Manga]]

[[folder: Fanfic]]
* Calvin is hypnotized in this manner by the school psychiatrist in ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries''.

[[folder: Film]]

* ''Film/Frankenstein1970'', Victor von Frankenstein does this with reflected light; playing it across the eyes of his victim while he talks in a low, hypnotic tone. He hypnotises Schutter with light reflected off a pair of forceps, and Mike with light reflected off a coin.

[[folder: Joke]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': When Xander gets a LiteralSplitPersonality, his meeker side thinks that his more confident side is an evil shapeshifter using a shiny coin to hypnotize people. [[SubvertedTrope Turns out Confident!Xander just found the coin at a construction site he was working at and thought it was cool.]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Music]]
* The video for Rainbow's song "Street Of Dreams" features a man being hypnotized with a pocket watch around the time the song kicks in.

--> ''"He's a hypnotist, hypnotist of ladies''\\
''Never had a pocket watch, never counted backwards."''

[[folder: Newspaper Comics]]
* ''Kerry Drake'' features a rare example of one of these being used on a crowd of people. Shandar hypnotizes his followers with a clock pendulum (he calls it "The Pendulum of Existence").

[[folder: Other Sites]]
* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[Characters/SCPFoundation Characters/SCPFoundation]]. The [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/log-of-anomalous-items Log of Anomalous Items]] has an inversion: a pocket watch that induces a mild trance state in anyone looking at it only when it '''isn't''' being swung back and forth like a pendulum.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]

[[folder: Web Video]]

''(A giant pocketwatch swings back and forth)''\\

''(the watch disappears)''\\
'''Diabetus:''' "You want to play better game" - oh.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* There was a DonaldDuck cartoon where Donald goes to Ludwig Von Drake for anger issues. Ludwig tries a watch, saying "Vatch de vatch!". [[SubvertedTrope It doesn't work]], so he simply [[DropTheHammer hits Donald over the head with a mallet]].
** The exact same thing happens in a WesternAnimation/SylvesterTheCatAndTweetyBird cartoon, where Sylvester goes to a psychiatrist to try and cure his problem chasing Tweety.

-->'''Hypnotist:''' You are all very good players.
-->'''Team:''' ''([[SpeakInUnison speaking in unison]])'' We are all very good players.
-->'''Hypnotist:''' You will beat Shelbyville.
-->'''Team:''' We will beat Shelbyville.
-->'''Hypnotist:''' You will give 110 percent.
-->'''Team:''' That's impossible. No one can give more than 100 percent. By definition that's the most anyone can give.

* One rare deconstructed case occurs in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', when Plankton ([[ItMakesSenseInContext disguising himself as a Shrink]]) tries this on [=SpongeBob=] to "help" him with his phobia of Krabby Patties (when in reality, he's trying to hypnotize [=SpongeBob=] into divulging the secret formula). Surprisingly, [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Plankton's initial hypnotism cures [=SpongeBob=] of his phobia]] and the Status Quo returns to normal (much to Plankton's protests and misfortune).

* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': In "Deep Dive" when Star continuously wakes up from her sleep-portaling right before she finds where the mysterious voice she hears is coming from, Janna Ordonia uses Marco's wristwatch to hypnotize her into staying asleep so they can help her find it.
** Another example is shown in the season 3 episode, Total Eclipsa the Moon where Star’s mother, Queen Moon Butterfly, is stuck in a hole and a spider takes the opportunity to use himself as a pendulum to make the Queen drowsy and rob her of her crown.

[[folder: Real Life]]

** Another example is shown in the season 3 episode, Total Eclipsa the Moon where Star’s mother, Queen Moon Butterfly, is stuck in a hole and a spider takes the opportunity to use himself as a pendulum to make the Queens drowsy and rob her of her crown.